The alarm clock screams. Again. It's the same shrill, mechanical sound that used to be goblin shrieks. My hand slams down on it, muscle memory flinching for a sword hilt. Empty air. Just the sticky laminate of the nightstand.
Breathe. You're here. You're safe.
The mantra tastes like ash. Safe is a word for people who don't wake up tasting iron, their sheets knotted like battle standards.
I count the cracks on the ceiling—eleven, same as yesterday. The landlord won't fix them, just like the mages never fixed the sky after the Siege of Vel'Sharra. Funny how both worlds run on neglect.
The café smelled of burnt beans and existential dread. Erion's apron clung to him like chainmail, starch-stiff and reeking of detergent. He moved behind the counter with the precision of a man who'd once disarmed traps in crypts—measuring grounds, timing the frother's gurgle, avoiding eye contact.
"Double shot, oat milk, extra cinnamon," droned a customer, thumb glued to her phone. Erion nodded. Extra cinnamon. As if sprinkling bark could make life tolerable. He'd once bartered cinnamon for a mercenary's loyalty in the bazaars of Kareth. Now it was 75 cents extra.
"You're zoning out again." Mr. Park, the owner, materialized beside him, squinting through bifocals. His voice was a whetstone—grinding, always grinding.
"The sink's clogged. Fix it before lunch rush."
Erion's jaw tightened. I redirected rivers to drown armies. But he nodded, reaching for the plunger.
The bathroom mirror shows a stranger. Gaunt. Hair the color of dirty dishwater. Eyes that still flinch from their own reflection.
What's worse? Forgetting who you were, or remembering who you failed?*
The sink gargles as I shove the plunger down. Clogged with hair and hubris.
A knock. "Hey, "Eddie"?" Lila's voice, bright and probing. She's the only one who uses the alias he scrawled on his name tag like it's a joke. "You done in there? I need to pee before my shift."
Lila Chen leaned against the doorframe, her dyed-blue bangs catching the fluorescents. Anthropology grad student. Part-time barista. Full-time thorn in Erion's side. She'd dubbed him "Eddie" on day one, claiming "Erion" sounded like a Dungeons & Dragons reject.
"Five minutes," Erion muttered, avoiding her gaze.
"You say that every time." She tilted her head, a crow studying roadkill. "You ever sleep? Or do you just, like, meditate in the walk-in freezer?"
He bristled. Sleep is where the dog finds me. "The sink's almost done."
"Cool. Then you can tell me why you call the mop 'the pike.'"
The plunger slipped from his hands.
She notices. Of course she notices. Humans here are blind to everything but their screens, but Lila… Lila picks at scabs. Stop. Breathe. She's not a spy. Not a witch. But the fear tastes familiar—sour, metallic.
What if the Council's followed me? What if they've sent her?
The dream comes back in flashes: the black dog, its teeth in the tapestry of worlds, threads snapping one by one. My fault. All my fault.
That night, Erion scrubbed the café floors until his hands cracked. Mr. Park had long since left, the lights dimmed save for the neon OPEN sign buzzing like a trapped fly. The mop water swirled gray, and for a moment, Erion saw faces—fallen comrades, the ones he'd led to die on pyres of his own arrogance.
A sound. Not the usual creaks of pipes or distant sirens. A whine, high and resonant, vibrating in his molars.
Behind him, the shadow of the espresso machine stretched too long, too sharp. The air smelled of ozone and wet fur.
Erion turned.
The black dog stood in the doorway, its eyes twin voids. A low growl rippled the puddle at its paws into fractal patterns—real magic, raw and hungry.
No. Not here. Not again.
The pike—mop—shakes in my hands. The dog's growl is a key turning in the lock of my ribs.
Run. Hide. You're not a hero anymore.
But the beast steps closer, and I see the threads tangled in its teeth—*Lila's laugh, Mr. Park's bifocals, the cracks in my ceiling*—all fraying.
"No," I whisper.
The dog lunges.
And for the first time in three years, Erion of the Shattered Citadel swings.